Thicker than Water
This story is currently in progress. Prologue The place was in ruins. Everywhere the light shone, all that could be seen was destroyed furniture, splintered wood, crumbled sheetrock, broken glass, and torn fabric. But no survivors, not one. The person holding the flashlight, a preteen boy with a vivid-red military hair cut, a pointy nose, and large, dark blue eyes. He was wearing black, spy-like clothing and was heavily armed with high-tech gear. “...Hello?” He called “Anyone here?” He got no response. Then, behind him he heard footsteps. He spun around, reaching for the weapon strapped to his belt, but the boy the light fell upon posed him no threat. “Any luck, Ferb?” the redhead asked. Ferb shook his head. He was the same age as him, with similar clothing and gear. He had a large, square nose and grass-green hair, cut in the same fashion as his companion. The first boy, Phineas Flynn, turned around to continue his search. Crunch! Phineas looked down at what he’d stepped on. It was a framed picture, the glass spider-webbed with white cracks. He picked it up and examined it. It depicted a family of three, a father whose face could not be seen through the cracks, a dark-haired, muscular boy who appeared to be in his late teens, and a blond girl who looked no older than five. They all were smiling happily at the camera, the dad’s arm around the boy’s shoulders, the boy holding hands with the little girl. The picture must have been taken and framed recently. Beneath the damage done from the attack, the picture did not appear to be old. After a few more minutes of searching, Phineas turned back to his companion "The place is deserted." he concluded "Either they escaped, or we can add three more names to our casualties list. Let's get back to-" He was cut short when he heard a tiny sound, like the whimper of an injured kitten. From his perch on the upturned sofa, Phineas shined his light into the corner where the noise had come from. And there, cowering in the corner and clinging to a worn out teddy bear, was the only sign of life in the whole house. I t was the little girl from the photograph. But she was only just recognizable. She was completely coated in grime and bruises. Her little blue dress was so torn and ragged it could barely be called a dress anymore. And her huge, doe brown eyes were like captured rats: trapped and terrified, darting this way and that. Phineas leaped off the sofa, but she cringed away when he walked in her direction. She was shivering violently, her face bleach white behind her bruises. “Hey kid, you alright?” Phineas asked. She didn’t answer. She just stared at him as if he was a ghost. “What happened here?” he asked, kneeling down to her height. “Do you know who did this?” She just turned away from him, burying her face in the teddy bear, like she was worried Phineas was going to bite her. “Hey, it’s okay.” Phineas said, more gentle this time “We’re gonna help you.” She peered over the edge of her bear, seemed to think about it for a second, then looked up at him. “What’s your name?” Phineas asked She held up the teddy bears paw. Stitched on it in cursive were the words “Ariel's pal”. “You’re Ariel?” She nodded. “I’m Phineas.” he said, offering a hand. She considered it, but didn’t shake it. “Where are your parents?” No answer. “Ariel, do you know where your parents are?” Still no answer. Just then, Phineas felt a tap his shoulder. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Ferb, holding two objects. In one hand, he was holding the broken picture, in the other, he was holding the device that projected holograms of any and all of the resistance members. Phineas looked at the boy in the photo, then at the hologram in the machine. They were the same person. “Ariel, where’s your brother?” Phineas asked, guessing the boy’s identity. Ariel still didn’t speak, but her lip started quivering. “Ariel, this is important.” He held up the broken picture, as if to jog her memory. “Do you know what happened to your brother?” She took the picture in her little hand, looked at it for a few moments, then hugged it against her chest and started crying. “Ariel, calm down...” Phineas looked over his shoulder at Ferb. “Let's bring her back to headquarters. She needs our help.” Ferb had his hand on his chin, staring at an laser burn on the wall as if it was the most intriguing thing in the world. After a second or two, he spoke up. “Phineas, I’ve had it. We can’t let him do this to another innocent civilian. We have only one choice left if we want to win this.” Phineas’s eyes grew wide. “Ferb, you remember what Candace said! We can’t execute that unless absolutely necessary.” “It is absolutely necessary. We’re out of options. We either carry out this plan, or get eliminated.” Phineas paused, then sighed. “Alright. Lets go back and ask for the OK from Candace.” Chapter 1 The Call to Arms In another time, another space, and another universe, a pair of very similar looking boys were doing quite the opposite: having the time of their lives. In fact, the boys were identical to the previously mentioned ones in every way, except they had longer, tousled hair, were wearing casual summer clothes, and were much less pale. “Beat you to the park, Ferb!” Phineas taunted playfully. Ferb willingly took the challenge. The two stepbrothers were using pairs of technologically advanced shoes to bounce across the roofs and chimneys of every building in Danville, the city in which they lived. Now, one may consider that outrageously hazardous, but Ferb had taken into account any and all safety precautions. So, unless a man with a unibrow and a nerdy-looking guy with purple glasses were to pop up out of nowhere and knock them out with a stun ray, there was nothing for them to worry about. Unfortunately, that was precisely what happened, just as the two of them bounced over a purple building that was shaped vaguely like Ferb’s head. -- “Owww...” Phineas woke up in a dimly lit room. Oddly enough, he wasn’t bound, gagged and/or dangling over a pool of piranhas like anyone would expect him to be. Instead, he was propped up in a cushiony red chair in what appeared to be a conference room. Ferb, who still seemed to be asleep, was slumped in another chair next to him. In fact, there were about half a dozen other chairs in the room, all of them surrounding a large table. “Ugh...Ferb, you okay?” Phineas asked, shaking him. Ferb snorted, wiped a string of drool from the corner of his mouth, and opened his eyes. He didn’t seem to recognize the room any more than Phineas did. “Wow, now that ''is what I call an unexpected turn of events. You had safety precautions set on anything except for a... hey, is that Candace?!” Now that their eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the room, the recognized a figure sitting four chairs to the left of them. Candace, their older sister, looked like she had been brought in shortly after them. She was still out cold. “Boy. I can only imagine what Jessie is up to right now...” The last time they’d seen Jessie, she had been standing precariously on top of the fence, seeing how many sticks of sidewalk chalk she could balance on her nose. She was up to twenty-five, when their friend Buford opened the gate and shaken the gate just enough to topple the teetering stack of colors. This was soon followed by Jessie herself tumbling off, though her massive amount of thick green hair cushioned her fall. “Buford, I was about to beat my high score!” she’d complained, untangling a stick of chalk from her curls. If it was anybody else talking, he’d have said “You never said that, dweeb!”. But instead, he blushed and stammered “S-sorry, dude... Uh, dudette.” Normally, Buford was an expert at keeping his cool, bully-ish nature, but for some reason, he could never pull this off when Jessie was around. The conversation had probably continued from there, but that was all the boys got a chance to here before they took off in their bouncy shoes. “Gee, I sure hope Jessie didn’t get in to trouble again. Try contacting her.” Ferb gave a thumbs up, then closed his eyes and concentrated. Being Jessie’s twin and having alien blood in his family, he was capable of telepathically communicating with her, though there were limits. Both of them were incapable of speaking to anybody except each other, and neither of them could speak if they were out of range. ''Jessie? Can you hear me? He asked. Loud and clear, bro. ...What? Where are you? How come you can hear me so well? I’m guessing it’s because you’re right behind this door. What door? '' Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open behind the boys. They turned around. “‘Sup, guys?” It was Jessie. Only, she wasn’t unconscious and being dragged by her captor as Phineas and Ferb had probably been. Instead, she just strolled into the room, munching casually on something from her pocket as if she’d done this every single day of her life. “...How’d you get here?” Phineas asked as she sat down next to him. “Took the elevator.” “No, I mean, did some important-looking old person in a green suit knock you out too?” “What? Nah, I just saw you getting dragged here by two guys in a hovercraft, so I figured it was probably best to tag along, just so you two wouldn’t get your necks broken.” “Yeah, but...Jessie, what are you eating?” Her mouth full, she held up the half eaten object she’d just taken a bite out of. It was one of the sticks of chalk she’d been balancing on her nose a minute ago. “Jessie...what do you think those are?” “...Food.” “It’s not.” There was a pause, then Jessie continued munching, completely unfazed. "Jessie, don't eat those." Phineas said in a deadpan voice. "Buthver goothf!" she protested, spraying chewed chalk in his face. Phineas took that as Mouth-Full-ese for "But they're good!", and decided it was best not to argue. Right around then, the door opened once more to reveal the unibrowed man who had caputured them. He was carrying something limp over his shoulder, but froze when he saw the boys. “Great googly moogly, they’re awake! Carl, zap ‘em again!” “Uh, sir, since they’re all here, we might as well start the briefing.” said Carl, the other, nerdy-looking captor. “Oh, uh...right.” He plopped the object he was carrying in the chair next to Ferb, and everybody jumped when it groaned, sat up, and brushed its jet black hair out of its eyes. It wasn’t an object, it was a person. “Isabella?” “Phineas? Where are we?” “I can honestly say that I don’t have even the most indefinite idea.” “All shall be explained shortly,” said the man with the unibrow. “But first we need to...Wait, wait, wait, hold on, what is she doing here?” He was pointing at Jessie, who was licking chalk from her fingers. “She followed us.” Phineas explained. “Criminy, Carl, why didn’t you stop her?!” “I’ve been outside, shooting people with stun guns all morning, sir, I don’t think I ''could’ve stopped her.” “Then what happened to our security?!” “Hacked it.” Jessie said “Took me about...” She counted for a second on her fingers, which took longer than usual since she only had two fingers and a thumb on each hand. “...48 and a half seconds. Might wanna consider updating that thing.” Carl started to write that suggestion down on a notepad, but his boss elbowed him. “Well, I suppose the mission could work with her aboard.” he said after thinking for a second. Phineas perked up. “Mission?” “Carl, you’ve re-programed the Amnesia-inator, correct?” “Finished last night, sir.” “Good!” There was an awkward silence. “Uh...Carl...” “Wha?....Oh right!” He dashed out of the room, then returned, shoving a large metal contraption. “You there, girl with the green hair, might wanna step out of the way.” Jessie obliged. It was of course then, when a giant ray-like machine was being pointed in her direction, that Candace woke up. “Ow, my hea-....Whaaaaaaaaaaaaat is that thing?” “Don’t worry, young lady,” Mr. Unibrow said as he and his intern began to press a set of buttons on the dashboard “Just hold still and you won’t feel anything.” “Oh, how comforting. Seriously, what is that?! Where are we?! And why is Jessie eating childish art utensils?!” Jessie’s eyes widened “I’m eating what?!” Nobody got a chance to say anything more before Carl pressed a button, and the whole room was filled with a blinding white flash. -- Phineas blinked. “Oh hey, Major Monogram” He waved at the unibrowed man. “How’s it goin’?” “It worked!” cheered Carl. “Don’t get to cocky, Carl, we need to test them first.” said his boss. Everybody at the table was blinking and looking around, as if they suddenly recognized where they were. “Phineas, where were you on this exact date last summer?” the Major asked. “Ummm... Ferb is it Tuesday?” Ferb nodded. “Yeah, we were in another dimension. Hiding from robots.” Jessie almost choked on a piece of chalk. “You what?” “Correct.” said Major Monogram “Do you remember how you got there?” “Yeah...we were trying to make a machine that could transport us to Pluto so we could try to re-promote it to planet status, but Ferb must’ve crossed a few wires because it took us there instead.” Major Monogram looked at Carl, who gave him a thumbs up. “Right. And...you don’t remember anything at all about a secret agent who just happened to be a platypus?” He stammered out the last sentence very quickly and nervously. Phineas looked at Ferb, who shook his head. “No.” Phineas said ”Though, as I recall, there was a platypus cyborg in that dimension.” Major Monogram and Carl turned around to hide a celebration knuckle bump. Everything had gone precisely as planned. “So...why did you bring us here?” Phineas asked. “Yeah, and why did you have to knock us out and drag us in here like sacks of potatoes?” asked Isabella “You could have just asked us nicely.” “Because...um...uh....that’s beside the point!” Monogram said. “You’re second dimension counterparts sent us a distress signal, saying that the need you to meet them there as soon as possible.” “So we’re going back to the second dimension? Awesome!” said Phineas, jumping off his chair. “Oh no!” Candace shouted “No, no, no, no, no, there is no way that I’m going back to that place with the lasers, and the robots and the big, hairy, brown whatchamacallit with the big teeth...” “They also mentioned that it was a life-and-death situation for both their and our dimension.” “...Fine.” “Why? What’s going on?” Phineas asked. "I thought Dr. D turned back on his evil ways." “I’m sorry, but could somebody please explain what we’re talking about here?!” Jessie butted in. “Jess, we’ll tell you in a second. It’s a long story.” Phineas told his sister. “Sorry, Major M, Jessie here wasn’t with us the last time we went.” “That is precisely why I did not want her to come with you.” Monogram sighed “Well, we don’t exactly have a choice now. Carl, fire up the old Otherdimensionator, and make it snappy. I’ve got to take my niece to choir practice in ten minutes.” Chapter 2 Brainwashing As Major Monogram and Carl worked on the device to get them to the second dimension, Phineas had a sudden thought. “Sir, how long is this mission going to take?” “Er... they never said specifically, but from the way your alternate counterparts were going on about it...several days.” “What are we going to tell our parents, then?” “...I hadn’t thought of that. You could ''just tell them the truth and cross your fingers that they’ll let this mission commence.” “Yeah, fat chance of that.” Jessie muttered “Although...” Phineas turned to her. “What?” “Well, there is something I could do...it’s extremely risky, but...” “Jess, spit it out.” Candace said “Well, you may recall that among the many odd events that ended to me and Ferb being born, there was an incident of mind control?” “Yessss...?” said Phineas, not wanting to go there. “Well, I probably should have told you this before, but I believe I may have inherited that ability.” {C}Everybody stared. ''You’re kidding, right? Ferb asked her in his mind. No, I’m dead serious. I’ve actually been capable of it for a while, I just didn’t want to freak anybody out. “And...how will that help?” Phineas asked. “Well, it won’t be easy, but I think ''I could temporarily recalibrate Mom and Dad’s minds so they think they have no kids. It should keep us out of trouble for at least another forty-eight hours.” There was a very uncomfortable pause. “That’s...creepy.” Candace said. “You have a better idea? I’m no more comfortable with this than you are.” And so, the matter was settled. While Carl and Major Monogram continued to work on the machine, Ferb and Jessie returned home to perform the unwanted task, though, to Ferb’s relief, Jessie told him it would only take one person. “Besides, you’ve never done it before, and it takes a lot of practice. Who knows what would happen if you made a mistake...” Ferb started wondering exactly ''what ''one had to do in order to brainwash somebody, but Jessie was clearly reading his mind, because she said: “You don’t wanna know, ''trust ''me.” So Ferb, who was getting more and more disturbed by the minute, waited in the backyard as Jessie did the unfortunate task. He thought it would only take a minute or two, but it didn’t. Five minutes...ten minutes...fifteen minutes. Starting to loose patience, he contacted her. ''Jessie, what’s taking you-'' ''Shut up! This is an art, not a science... She sounded so snappy it made Ferb jump. Finally, after what Ferb officially considered too long, Jessie exited the door. She looked rather clammy, and shuddered whenever anything touched her. So, how’d it go? Perfectly as planned. But we’re still not, as earthlings say, completely out of the woods. Why is that? Well, say somebody was talking to one of them, then brought up the subject of me or you. Mom and Dad wouldn’t know who they were talking about, and people would start to think they’ve lost their minds. I hadn’t thought of that... Well, it’s not like we have a choice now, right? So, tell me about this ‘Second Dimension’ you were going on about... -- By the time the twins had returned to the headquarters, the Otherdimensionator was ready, and Jessie was fully informed about it’s destination. The shimmery green portal, their door to the next dimension, was glowing beside the machine, waiting for them. “Good luck and godspeed, agents.” said Major Monogram, saluting them. “If you succeed, you will be doing two entire universes a great favor.” “We won’t let you down, sir.” said Phineas, as he and everyone else saluted back. Then, single file, they all stepped through the portal and into the second dimension. Phineas, who was the last in line, hesitated for a second. It just occurred to him that he might not make it back to this universe while still in one piece. But hey, what’s life without a little risk? He turned, stepped into the portal, and had only taken one step before ramming his large pointy nose into Isabella’s back. She’d stopped walking a bit too abruptly. “Ow! What-” Then he saw why everybody had frozen. If he hadn’t been told exactly where he was, he would never have recognized it. Ever. Not if his life depended on it. -- A year ago, though it was filled with Doofenshmirtz-related propaganda and colored the way Doofenshmirtz intended it to be, you could still recognize the city as Danville’s counterpart. Now, it looked like anybody’s idea of a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The sky, which had once been a light shade of heliotrope, was smoky grey, making it almost as dark as midnight, despite it being only the afternoon. Not one street or building wasn’t crumbling. Some of them were destroyed all together. Very few lights were on in any windows. And it was silent. Silent as the grave, except for the low moaning and whistling of the wind. The silence is what made everybody so still, they were used to living in Danville and hearing car engines, dog barks, and police sirens, even in the dead on the night. Phineas felt a shiver down his spine, his mind filling with questions. Where was everybody? How did this happen? Who did it? How long did it take? And where’s Perry? “Hello?” Phineas called “Anybody there?” Almost immediately, a gloved hand covered his mouth, scaring him right out of his skin. “Quiet!” said a voice that sounded exactly the same as his “We can’t let anyone see us!” Everybody turned and looked. Phineas’s second dimension counterpart had been standing behind them the entire time, waiting patiently for them to speak to him. He had grown a few inches since the last time they’d been there, but otherwise, looked just like how they remembered him: pale, serious, and wearing spy clothes that would put 007 to shame. “Oh, hey, second dimension me.” Phineas said, shaking his hand “How you been?” “I think answering that is unnecessary” Phineas-2 said, gesturing at the city behind them. “Yeah, I saw. That really sucks. Anyway, where’s everyone else?” “Back in HQ, which is where I’m supposed to be taking you.” “Then lead us on, me. I say we and all our alternate selves have some catching up to do.” Chapter 3 Fight the Good Fight When they reached the headquarters, however, they found they had no time for that. Now that they could see him in full light, they saw that Phineas-2 had ''changed: He was flecked in injuries some of them old, some of them fresh and red. Most of them appeared to be burns, but a few looked like cuts, from a knife or sword. It made him look brutal and battle worn, like a soldier three times his age. He set each of them in a chair around a table much like the one they sat at when they were told of this mission, only much more worn and dirty. “What happened to you?” Phineas dared to ask, eyeing a particularly nasty looking burn over his alternate-self’s eye. “Oh, this? This is nothing, you should see what Buford looks like.” “Yes, I’m sure we’d all love to get reaquanted,” said a cool, female voice from the entrance to the room “But we have much more pressing matters to attend to.” Stepping out of the shadows in that dark, mysterious way that she was so good at, was Candace’s alternate self. She, also, looked much the same as before, but was even more damaged than her brother was. One of the scars, running from just under her eye to below her mouth, looked like it was going to be permanent. “Hi, alternate dimension Candace!” Everyone said “Hello, soldiers. No time for chit-chat, we have serious business to discuss. Baljeet?” Baljeet’s alternate self stepped in. “That’s Doctor Baljeet to you!” “Whatever, begin the briefing.” Baljeet pressed a button on the wall. The lights dimmed, bringing their attention to a massive screen on the wall. “As you know,” Baljeet-2 began “Precisely a year ago, you assisted us in bringing down the tyranny of Emperor Doofenshmirtz and brought peace to the Tri-state area.” A mugshot of Doofenshmirtz, still holding his Choo-Choo, appeared on the screen. “Unfortunately, what we did not know is, he had a secret weapon in the process of being built. After his inprisionment, it continued to be constructed without his assistance and, several weeks ago, was unleashed. It reduced our city to this in record time.” On the screen, an image of Danville in ruins appeared, the same image they’d seen when they’d stepped through the portal. “Wow...well, what ''was' this secret weapon?” Phineas asked. “No ‘what’,” Baljeet said “Who.” A third image appeared on the screen. “Suzerain, we call him. Makes any threat we’ve ever faced look like a protozan.” -- Phineas had difficulty believing the figure on the screen was a man and not a machine. He was at least six feet tall, maybe even taller. Every last inch of his heavily muscular body was encased in black and yellow metal, except for a few inches of his face. Resting in his left hand was the hilt of a weapon. It appeared to be the world’s most high-tech sword, and looked like it could reduce Phineas to a pile of mincemeat before he even knew what hit him. From the few inches of his face that weren’t concealed in armor, Phineas could just make out his eye, though the picture wasn’t clear enough for him to tell what it looked like. Isabella was the first to speak. “What can you tell us about him?” “Not very much, other than the fact that he’s almost entirely mechanical.” “You mean, he’s a cyborg?” asked Phineas. He always thought cyborgs were extremely cool. “Yes, you could say that.” “What we also know,” Candace-2 said “Is that he has absolutely and utterly no moral code." There was a short, rather awkward pause. “So...what did you bring us ''here for?” Asked Jessie “Take a wild guess.” Phineas’s bright red eyebrows met in the middle. “You need us to help you capture and imprison him, I take it? That can be aranged, we’ve done much less impossible things in the past...” “That isn’t ''quite ''what we had in mind.” “...Then what? You call to play charades or something? ‘Cause Ferb’s been practicing.” “What we called you for,” Candace-2 was loosing her patience “Was to assist us by bringing Suzerain down once and for all.” Phineas felt like the temperature inside his stomach had just dropped fifteen degrees. “And you want...us to do it?” “Not want,” Phineas-2 said solemnly “We actually ''need' '''''you to accomplish this mission.” Phineas exchanged a nervous glance with his brother who was, as usual, wearing a thoroughly blank expression, but looked very white. They, as well as the girls, each had the same thought going through their heads:All of them had fought a force of evil at some point, that wasn’t what they were worried about. Both the boys had once battled a supervillain while under the disguise of their beak suit, Jessie had told them many a story about her life on a different planet that involved a scrape with a nefarious foe, and all of them (Minus Jessie) had fought and won an epic struggle against an army of robots, saving the Tri-State area in the process. No, being a soldier in the battle of good and evil wasn’t new to them. But ''killing ''someone? “Why ''can’t ''we capture and imprison him?” Asked Jessie, finally breaking the silence. “Two reasons. Candace-2 said “First of all, as you may or may not have noticed, our federal prison is no longer capable of hosting criminals.” Dr. Baljeet switched back to the image of the ruined city and and, using a laser pointer he’d pulled out of one of his many coat pockets, indicated a demolished pile of steel and rubble that had apparently once been the city jail. “And second,” Continued Candace-2 “His crimes against the human race are nothing short of unforgivable. He’s earned his demise, a thousand times over.” “Are you-” “Phineas, if you had been forced to watch a man ruthlessly torture, terrorize and murder thousands of innocent people while clearly ''enjoying himself, would you be content with just putting him behind a set of bars that he could probably escape from before the day was up?” Phineas didn’t answer, but she could read his expression. “I didn’t think so.” During this conversation, several other second dimension counterparts of them and their friends had entered the room: Ferb-2, who was nursing a fresh wound on his shoulder, Isabella-2, who had a bandage wrapped over her left eye (“It’s fine,” she’d said “I’m not gonna loose half my vision or anything.”), and Gretchen-2, who had come to tell Candace that “Things are still looking inconclusive”, whatever that meant. “Believe me, Phineas,” said Isabella-2, who had overheard “None of us want to kill anybody. In fact, it’s the last thing any of us want to do. We just don’t have a choice.” Candace-2 nodded. “Under other circumstances, I’d rather die than kill anyone. But there’s too much at stake. I’m not letting him hurt anybody else I care about.” “Else?” “That’s unimportant. The point is, everybody is at risk so long as he’s alive.” Phineas was reminded of something she'd told Candace a year ago: “I’d do whatever it takes to protect the ones I love." “I understand.” he said after a pause “But there’s one thing I don’t get.” “What’s that?” “How come you called ''us ''to do it? I mean, I saw your combat skills last summer, I say you’re more than capable of bringing him down.” “I actually agree.” Phineas-2 said “We probably are.” “Then why do you need us?” “The answer to that is simple.” Candace-2 ripped off her sunglasses, as if she needed to see better in order to answer him. “We’re trying to take care of his army.” “Army?” “Remember those rustbuckets we had to fight last year? Well, the borgs Suzerain in charge of...lets just say he would make those guys go running and hiding under their beds. But the real problem is not ''what ''we’re fighting, but ''where ''we’re fighting them. You see, he and his army are miles apart from each other.” “Then how is he supposed to command them?” “We have no idea, but as you can imagine, it makes it nearly impossible to fight them both. We’ve been forced to separate into two fighting groups, which cuts down our strength by half. Therefor, we require another set of soldiers if we plan to win this war.” “My sister is correct.” Ferb-2 said, speaking for the first time since they met him “There’s nobody left here willing to assist us, and you’re the the only ones in your dimension we can trust.” Candace-2 nodded. “You five are the last hope we have. Are you in?” Phineas looked at Ferb, Ferb looked at Jessie, Jessie looked at Candace, Candace looked at Isabella. Then they all looked at Phineas. He got the message. “Well, Ferb” he said, turning to his brother “I guess I know what we’re gonna do today: Save the universe from apocalyptic peril at extreme risk of life and limb. Nachos are on me when we get back home.” Chapter 4 '''Ignorance is Bliss Phineas didn't sleep too much that night. He was too busy thinking about the weight that had just been placed on his shoulders. Just think, only a matter of hours ago, he and Ferb were still sitting under that tree, thinking about that days project, completely unaware of how much danger their friends in the second dimension were in. Tomorrow, he would have to infiltrate the highest-security building on the planet, defeat the most powerful and evil man in existence, and make it back before an army swarmed their city. That's a lot of expectations to place on an eleven-year-old kid. But that wasn’t the only thing keeping him up. He’d found out who it was Candace-2 cared about that Suzerain had harmed. Shortly after the meeting, out of habit more than anything, had asked his personal age-old question: “Hey, where’s Perry?” Immediately, he regretted ever saying that. Phineas-2’s eye’s fell sadly to his boots, Ferb-2 touched his shoulder comfortingly, his own face sorrowful, and Candace-2 turned her head away, hiding her face. Tough as she was, Phineas suspected she was suddenly close to tears. Before Phineas could take it back or ask what was wrong, though, Isabella-2 had grabbed him and pulled him away from the group. “Whatever you do,” she’d said “Don’t you dare ''mention Perry around any of them. They’re shaken enough as it is.” “Why? What happened to him?” Phineas asked, dreading the answer. “Come on, I’ll show you.” She led him and the other four out of the room. They traveled down several dark corridors, past black, undecorated walls, until they came into what appeared to be the hospital ward. He was shocked by the number of occupants. The resistance had apparently increased greatly in numbers since they were last here, because he only recognized a handful of faces. Some had only a cut or a sprained ankle, while others were being carried between two people, sporting injuries that Phineas thought should not be survivable. Looking among the group, he saw one person he knew, but had never seen in this dimension. “Stacy?” Candace said. She looked up, revealing a nasty looking gash on the side of her face. “Candace? What the-” “They’re from another dimension.” Isabella-2 explained. Stacy-2 looked at them, confused, then her eyes grew wide and she stood up, wincing as she did so. “Are you the team Candy called to take care of Suzerain?” Phineas was about to answer, but Isabella grabbed his arm. “Yes, yes he is”, she said, leading him away as she started shouting and pointing him out to everyone as if he was some sort of celebrity. “I must apologize for that. As you may or may not have noticed, we’re getting kind of desperate.” She led him to lonely looking door. “Now, brace yourself.” she said “This may be a bit of a shock. But don’t touch anything or talk to anyone.” And she opened the door. It took them a few seconds to comprehend, then: “Oh my...” said Isabella, covering her mouth. It looked like any typical operation room in a hospital, only everything was dark grey or black instead of white, and instead of surgery tools, there were wrenches, rivet guns, welders, wires, screws, rotary drills, power saws, just about any building devise he and Ferb could think about. There were even a few they didn’t recognize, and being a pair of boys who used building tools on a regular basis, that was saying something. A team of Firestorm Girls, all of them wearing welding masks instead of of surgical ones, were gathered around a table in the center, hard at work. Sparks flew, drills whirred, tiny power saws buzzed through iron and wiring. For a moment, Phineas thought they were building some sort of android. But then he saw the half-mechanical tail. And he recognized the limp, lifeless figure lying flat on the wood. “...Perry?” Isabella-2 nodded sadly “We sent him on a mission to try and take care of Suzerain several days ago, but things went bad. He was half dead when Ferb found him, but his heart managed to stay beating long enough for him to make it back to HQ. The girls have been working on him ever since.” Phineas just stared, frozen in disbelief. Just the thought of Platyborg, the partially-robotic counterpart of his own beloved house pet, struggling for life on a hospital bed sent chills down his spine. “Will he be...okay?” asked Isabella faintly. “We honestly don’t know.” Isabella-2 said “He’s been in this joint almost three days and we still can’t make an accurate estimation of his chances of survival. But the fact that he’s made almost entirely out of metal doesn’t exactly make him an easy patient.” “Wow...well, if your troop is anything like mine, I say he’s in good...Phineas? Are you okay?” Phineas’s hands had balled into fists, his knuckles turning white. Something fiery hot was rising in his chest like lava, filling him with strength that made him feel like he could bring down Chuck Norris with one hand tied behind his back. It was a feeling he, like all people, had felt before, but had so seldomly that he didn’t immediately recognize it: Hatred. He’d never hated anybody more than he hated the man who had done this. “If it’s the last thing I do,” he said, deadly quiet. “I’ll make him pay for this. Nobody, no matter what dimension, messes with my platypus and gets away with it.” -- Phineas sighed and turned his head over on his pillow. Looking back, Phineas was surprised nobody had looked at him and said "Who are you and what have you done with Phineas Flynn?" He couldn't remember the last time he'd gotten that angry. He tried to forget about it, but it’s very difficult to stop remembering something when you don’t want to remember it. And it didn’t help him sleep. And when he finally ''did ''get to sleep, he had a dream. More like a nightmare. A nightmare he hadn’t had in seven years. A nightmare he thought he’d ''stopped ''having. It was raining. That was always the first thing he noticed when he had this dream: huge, heavy raindrops were pounding thickly against the roof like bullets. Thunder roared overhead like an angry monster. Phineas had been cursed with a pathological fear of thunder until he was five, when Ferb had taught him that it was nothing but the sound of angels bowling. Candace was standing by the window in her room, staring silently out the drenched, streaming glass. Red, blue and golden lights were blazing and flickering outside, reflecting off her wide, terrified eyes. She’d evidently been woken from her sleep in the middle of the night, since she was still wearing her pajamas, a pair of purple ones she hadn’t fit in since the third grade...This wasn’t present day, teenage Candace. By the looks of things, she was no older than seven. The room wasn’t quite the same either: There was a big, yellow Ducky Momo plushie on her bed, and not a single poster was the same. Candace was gripping the windowsill with both hands and watching the phenomenon that was happening in the backyard. Whatever it was, it was loud. Even through the locked window, she could hear police and firetruck sirens, people shouting, some of them screaming, and underneath it all, the rumbling crackle of a fire. Police cars, fire, a thunderstorm, and people you don’t know in your yard...along with the Boogie Man, those things haunt your nightmares when you’re little like nothing else does. But the eerily imperfect silence remained unbroken for only a minute longer. “...Sissy?” A tiny, innocent little voice squeaked from the doorway. Candace looked over her shoulder to find that the voice's owner was none other than... “Phineas? How’d you get out of your crib again?” The Phineas that was standing there was very small. He looked about two, maybe two and a half. He was wearing yellow footy pajamas, the cozy ones he’d gotten for Christmas, and was holding his floppy stuffed Labrador, Mrs. Miggins. His big, blue, puppy dog eyes were melting right into his big sister’s heart. She couldn’t get mad at him, not now, even if it was the third time in two days he’d snuck into her room past bedtime. “I scared, Candwase.” he whimpered. He still couldn’t quite say her name right. “Dere scawey people outside.” As if on cue, a peal of thunder rumbled from the clouds, making him squeal and shrink back into the hall, quivering with fright. “Come here.” said Candace gently. Phineas toddled over on his unsteady little legs and put his tiny hand in hers. She squeezed it tightly. “Wha’s going on, Sissy?” He was standing on tiptoe, trying to see out the window. “Who are dey? “I...I don’t know, Phineas.” Candace admitted. Phineas looked up at her as if she was the smartest, most important person in the whole wide world. “But you know ''evewyfing!” Candace smiled a weak, sad smile and tousled his already-messy mop of red hair. “Go ask Daddy, he’ll know what to do.” Phineas nodded, turned, and scampered to the door, intent on going to his parents’ room. Candace was about to follow him, when she realizing something that made her freeze: Daddy wasn’t in his room. He was outside, working. Working on...on... She slowly looked back at the window, horror filling her eyes. No, it couldn’t...it hadn’t... Footsteps shuffled in the hall. Phineas was back. “...Sissy? Where’s Daddy?” He’d just been to the room and found it empty. His mother was in the yard, he’d heard her voice, but his father was nowhere to be found. Candace wasn’t even looking at him. She was staring out the window with more comprehension, as if something had just dawned on her that made everything crystal clear. “...Candwase?” No response. He stumbled over to her and grabbed her hand again, but she still didn’t move. “Candwase?” He shook her arm. “...Candwase?” She finally tore her gaze away from the window and down to her baby brother, her eyes glazing over with tears. “...Whas’ wrong, Sissy?” Candace didn’t want him to see her cry. She picked him up in her arms and held him, trying, but failing, not to sob. And that was always the last image to be seen before the nightmare ended: A small, weeping Candace, holding an even smaller Phineas tightly against her heart, the both of them listening to the desperate cries outside as people searched for a man who would never be found alive. Ever. “Daddy...” Candace sobbed as the nightmare faded “Oh, Daddy...” Phineas’s eyes flew open, pulling him back into reality like a hooked fish. He lay flat on his back, shivering and breathing heavily as if he’d just ran a mile. Every last inch of his skin was clammy with cold sweat. After managing to think straight again, he ripped of his covers and sat up. The sleeping quarters had no windows, but he guessed it was still dark out. To his right, Ferb was still snoring away in dreamland, and to his left, Jessie was still mumbling in her sleep, this time about milk cartons and fluffy trilobites that needed to be sheared. Everything seemed calm, quiet and peaceful, quite the opposite of how Phineas felt. He swung his legs over the edge of his bed, hid his head in his arms, and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. Relax, Dude, he told himself, gripping his hair. It was only a nightmare. Nothing but a nonsensical formulation of your own imagination... But that was a direct lie, and he knew it. It wasn’t just a creation of his own mind, and pretending to believe otherwise didn’t comfort him. It was real. Or at least it had been, at some point. He remembered, vaguely, having that same nightmare almost every night when he was small. He remembered going to his “Sissy’s” room for comfort every time and, though he couldn’t really recollect anything she said, she often spoke to him as if she was having nightmares just like his. He remembered it being like this for over a year. The nightmares eventually decreased in frequency, but they still happened. And they never got any more bearable. Then, when he was four, everything changed. His mother had gotten married, and his stepbrother Ferb had entered his life. After that, he not only stopped having the nightmares, but he forgot about them. Before long, he was back to the happy, bubbly little boy that he was before. And he had hardly changed since. It had never occurred to him, not once in the seven years that had past, that he’d had a father prior to the one he had now. He’d known he had, of course, he’d just never thought about it...not until now... Phineas couldn’t just keep all these thoughts in his head. He rose from the bed, still shaking, and walked. He walked through hall after hall, door after door, not paying much attention to where he was going. He walked from one room to another, stumbling a time or two in the dark, until he finally came to the stair case that lead out of HQ. He climbed them, opened the invisible trapdoor at the top, and took a deep breath of the sharp, chilly night air. The stars were still out, but there was a faint stain of green along the horizon. Dawn was approaching. Phineas hauled himself out and walked across the short dewy grass. The hideout, he discovered, was built inside a mountain. After walking a few yards, he came to a cliff edge, icy wind fluttering through his hair and clothes. Below him, a seemingly endless ocean of hills rolled by, some of them dotted with fir trees and boulders the size of houses. Phineas sat down by the edge and hugged his knees. This was a good place to think. “...Phineas?” He jumped and looked behind him. There, watching him with an irritated face, was Candace. Her hair looked like a bright orange hamster nest and her eyes were sleepy. Apparently, she had followed him. “What are you doing up so early?” she said, annoyed. “You should be in b-b-” She heaved an enormous yawn. “-bed.” Phineas didn’t answer. He usually didn’t appreciate stalkers, but she just happened to be the exact person he wanted to see. “I had the nightmare again, Candace.” He said after a moment. “What nightmare? You mean the one about creepy online people who want you and Ferb to-” “No, no, no, no, not that one!” he yelped, covering his ears. Anything but being reminded of that dream... “Then what? Is it another one about being locked in the girl’s locker room with an amateur goat herder? Cause-" “Candace, do you remember when I was little, I used to have the same nightmare every other night?” The silence that followed was so long, Phineas was about to repeat himself, thinking she hadn’t heard him. “Yes.” “I had it again. Last night.” Another pause. Then, looking a little stunned, she sat down by his side and looked at him. She looked so sorry for him, that he felt a little better. “Wanna...talk about it?” Her voice was so gentle, it almost didn’t sound like her. Phineas looked back at the horizon. It was starting to get brighter, the stars slowly being extinguished like candles. Then, not able to stand it anymore, Phineas voiced what had been burning in his mind all night: “Tell me about my dad, Candace. My...first dad.” It was clear, from the look on Candace's face, that she had been dreading this conversation for a very, very long time. Chapter 5 The Story of Samuel Flynn For the next minute it was quiet. Phineas didn’t look at his sister, nor press her for an answer. He just sat and waited. “Do you remember him? At all?” She finally asked. Phineas shook his head. “All I know is that he’s dead.” Candace closed her eyes. It had been a while since she’d thought of him, too. “He was...incredible. He thought that absolutely nothing was impossible as long as you believed it could be done. And he never gave up on anything he started, no matter how many times he messed up. He was probably the smartest, most creative guy who ever lived, but he never bragged about it, not even the day he created the left-handed flanch tuner. He was an inventor, see, but he never let it get in the way of being a great dad...” Candace continued long after that. She told him everything. She told him about how their father had always had great ideas, had built hundreds of genius inventions, even from a young age, and, through thick and thin, had always retained a cheerful and eccentric personality. She told him about how he hardly ever got angry, even when the two of them got into mischief (“Which, believe me, was very often.”), and how he always tried to look on the brighter side of things. She told him that, whenever you were around him, you just couldn’t help but feel happy. She even told him what he looked like. Apparently, he and Phineas looked so much alike that one of the very first things Candace said when she met Phineas after he was born was “He’s gonna be just like Daddy someday!”. But most of all, she told him that he was man who knew how to love. According to a very special book, love is patient, kind, content, humble, selfless, not easily angered, forgiving, joyful, faithful, hopeful and enduring. And he had been all that. And more. “Then, when you were two,” It was almost an hour later. As Candace had spoken, Phineas could hear her voice getting shakier and shakier until it was almost broken. “There was an...accident one night, and he was...dead. Just like that...” Her voice trailed off. She was shivering all over, and it wasn’t from the cold. Phineas shuffled over to her side, lay his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes. Candace looked down at her little brother and, for the first time in quite a while, didn’t just shrug him off. Instead, she wrapped an arm around him gave him a sideways hug. Neither of them spoke for a while. The sky had turned to a light shade of gray, only a few stars remaining visible. “You remind me so much of him, Phineas” Candace said quietly. “It’s scary. He would have been so proud of you if he’d seen that rollercoaster you built." {C}A lump tightened in Phineas’s throat. {C}“What was his name?” His voice was small and cracked. {C}“Samuel. Samuel Flynn. Sam for short.” Phineas had to close his eyes tight to keep them from stinging. Samuel. That was his middle name. All along, he’d had a piece of his father with him, and never known it... Candace gave him a little squeeze. {C}“I miss him too.” {C}It was quiet after that, no sound at all except for the low whistle of the wind. Phineas felt like a little whole had just been burned through his heart, but also felt strangely relieved, as if a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He now knew. After such a long time, finally knew. A little puzzle piece of his identity had fallen into place. As they sat there, the sky slowly became brighter and brighter. The clouds were streaked with pink, orange and gold as the sun peeked out over the edge of the mountains and began to rise, like a slow, glowing balloon. An early bird sang from a tree below. It was morning. “Come on.” Phineas said, standing up. “We’ve got a job to do.” Chapter 6 This isn't Science Fiction Ferb blinked his eyes open and yawned. Being a champion morning person, he only needed to lay there a second or two before sitting up and turning to the bed to his left, expecting his brother to be sitting there, up bright and early for their fate-of-the-world mission, but he wasn’t. And he wasn’t sleeping either. He wasn’t there at all. The blankets were pulled back, but the bed had a cold, lonely feeling about it, as if it hadn’t been slept in for at least a few hours. Either Phineas had gotten up far earlier than his already early usual waking time, or... Call him paranoid if you will, but in an alternate dimension under the rule of a sadistic tyrant, you can never be too careful. Jessie...Jess, wake up. Mpfff...Go away, umbrella dog. Jessie’s thinking voice sounded unfocused and distant, as if her mind was somewhere far, far away. Jessie, up! But Daddy, crabs don’t have uvulas... Ferb put his hand right next to her pointy, elfish ear and snapped. UP! Jessie woke with a start. And what a start it was. She sat bolt upright, threw her head back, and literally screamed at he top of her lungs “''AND IT IS NOT A SCAR, IT’S A BIRTHMARK!!!” She opened her eyes, panting, then noticed all of the startled, staring faces she had woken up. She blushed faster than a chameleon. “Uh...heh heh...morning guys!” All of the cranky resistance members glared at her a little longer, then decided they might as well get ready for the day now that Jessie had just fulfilled the role as their alarm clock. Ferb, who was just recovering from the miniature cardiac arrest Jessie had given him with her scream, opened his mouth to tell her that Phineas and Candace were missing, but was interrupted by: “Geez, Jessie, did you eat a pound of chocolate before going to bed again?” Ferb turned around and there, to his relief, was Phineas, Candace right behind him. Before he could ask where they’d been, though, he was once again interrupted. He was used to interruption, though, so he didn’t make a scene. “Okay, people, up and at ‘em! We’ve got...Oh, you’re up already...” It was Candace-2, arriving to wake up the daytime squad. She stood there for a few more a few awkward seconds, then went around the room, giving everyone assignments. When she finally came around to Phineas and the others, though, she didn’t give them one. Instead, she beckoned them down the hall. She lead them to a room clearly marked in bold, peeling words: '''Private to Resistance Leader' No Unauthorized Entrance Violators Will Have Their Spleen Removed Below these words, quickly scribbled in marker with what Phineas recognized as Candace’s handwriting, was an extension to the warning that had been added sometime after the original one was. Apparently, she was tired of being pressed with the same question. No, you do not need one in order to live! Phineas didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe in the opposite direction. The Candace he lived with was already highly selective about who was and was not allowed in her room, but this, this was a little extreme. Candace-2 opened the door and beckoned them all in. When they hesitated, she added: “Relax, your spleens aren’t going anywhere.” Candace-2’s room was, to the least, impressive. It was almost twice the size of any other room in HQ, probably as a mark of Candace’s status. Covering every wall and ceiling were weapons, battle plans, computer screens showing various maps, various instruments of imprisonment, and a picture of Jeremy. In the center of the room was circular a hologram projector, a perfectly-scaled model of this-dimensions Danville glowing above it. After being given about a second to admire the room’s content, Candace-2 beckoned them over to the hologram machine. She scrolled through the city until she came to a very sinister-looking black and yellow steel building. It was twice as tall as any other in sight, but very narrow. Several “turrets” grew from it, some of them sprouting other, smaller ones. At the front towered an enormous air-locked door, and the entire thing was towering over the surface of a massive, glassy lake. All in all, the look of it made Candace’s next statement rather unnecessary: “This is Suzerain’s...well, I wouldn’t say “home”, he doesn’t live anywhere, but this is usually where he hangs out when he isn’t terrorizing people." She pressed another button. The holographic building became transparent, exposing it’s hundreds, possibly thousands of corridors. In fact, the entire interior of the building looked like it was nothing but corridors, all of them snaking into a maze with only a few rooms in between. "Here’s the plan,” Candace-2 said, “Baljeet-” "Pardon me?!” shouted a voice in the distance. "Doctor Baljeet will build you a teleportal that will take you-" “Teleportal?” Candace-2 grit her teeth “I’ll explain later! Can I continue with no more interruptions!” Phineas cringed. Candace-2 had a very powerful voice. “Sorry...” “As I was saying, he’ll make you a teleportal that will take you here.” She pointed at a spot on the hologram several yards from the building’s entrance. “Once you’re there, look around in there until you find him. Most of his minions are in the army at the moment, but be prepared to face some guards. When you find him...well, the odds of success are...microscopic, but you need to defeat him.” She tossed Phineas something, which he caught. It was a small pack, filled with what he instantly recognized as spy gear. It contained a small black headset, fitted with a microphone and earpiece, a pair of traction gloves, a packet of tiny grenade-like objects, and a weapon of some sort. Before he could examine it, however, Candace continued briefing her plan. “Each of you gets one of these. You will be able to communicate with us, the boys and I, I mean, but only do so if you absolutely have to. If possible, only use it to communicate with one another.” “We can do that? Like secret agents?” If looks could kill, Phineas would have dropped like a fly. “What did I say about interrupting me?” No response. “Thank you. Now, we’ll be able to accompany you long enough to help you get into the building, but no further. After that, you’re on your own. Try to make it back here by this time tomorrow.” “Will do.” “Alright. She gave them a brief rundown of how to correctly operate the supplies they had been given. When she introduced them to the weapons, which she referred to as a “Blazer knife”, Phineas couldn’t help but notice: "Hey...these things remind me of something I saw in a Space Adventure movie once..." "A what?" “Space Adventure? The most successful science fiction movie series of all time?” "Oh, right, that. Nah, this isn’t science fiction, Phineas. This isn’t some magic high-tech-y sword that can cut through anything on the planet and not cause a fire. No, these have their limits. And you need to be careful with them, they’re unstable. Very unstable." Through his telepathic link, Ferb heard Jessie’s mind formulate: Just like this entire treaking mission. Ferb did not know what "Treaking" meant, but he suspected it was not something she would say in front of their parents. Chapter 7 The Promise "You sure you want to come with us, Isabella?" Phineas asked as he and the others began to put on their mission gear "It's gonna be dangerous." "How dangerous?" "Extremely. Chances of us making it back alive are probably in the single-digits." "Then I'm coming. I'm a dangerous girl." Phineas grinned a little "Well, that I can believe." Phineas looked over at Ferb, who was watching them with a look of mild satisfaction. “...What?” Ferb shrugged in an “Oh, nothing” fashion. “...What are you looking at, Jess?” Phineas had noticed Jessie staring over his shoulder, a look of curiosity and confusion on her face. “Who’s that?” Everyone turned, and fell quiet. Peering shyly from behind a rack of bo staffs, Candace-2’s favorite form of weaponry, were a pair of Bambi-brown eyes. It was too dark to see who the eyes belonged to, but they could tell it was somebody very small. They only saw the eyes for a second, though, before they shrank back behind the rack. “That’s Ariel.” Candace-2 said “Her family got killed by Suzerain.” “That’s awful!” Isabella gasped." “Yeah, she was one of the lucky ones. Her brother is one of our soldiers here, but we haven’t seen him since the attack. He may still be alive, since there weren't any remains, but it’s highly unlikely. Nobody lives once Suzerain decides to kill them." “Isn’t that Voldemort?” Jessie asked. “I am choosing to ignore that remark...” "Why don’t you just ask her if she knows where he is?” Phineas inquired. "Because she won’t speak.” “Kinda like Ferb?” “No, I mean she won’t speak, hasn’t said a single word since we found her." “Well...how much have you tried to talk to her?” “Me? I’m the leader of this resistance, kid, I have more important matters than trying to coax a few words out of....Ferb, what are you doing?” Ferb had reached into his pocket and, pulling a raisin and oatmeal cookie out of it, stepped behind the rack to get a closer look at the little girl. Ferb knelt down to her height, his face quiet and kind, then offered the cookie to her. She was staring at him, frightened, but didn’t shrink away. She looked down at the cookie, then back at him, then back at the cookie. It took quite a bit of time and patience, but Ferb eventually gained her trust, and she accepted the snack. Theen, for the first time that day, he spoke: “What’s your name?” She looked up at him, nibbling on the biscuit, but didn’t answer. "Is your name Ariel?” She hesitated, then nodded. “What happened to your family?” She glanced away, looking sad. Still not a single sound came from her. “Ariel,” Ferb reached forward and, very gently, touched her tiny hand. She tensed, almost pulling it away, but then relaxed. “Can you tell me what happened to your family?” She hesitated one more time, then, with a quiet, whimpering little voice, she answered. “Uh huh...” Then, holding onto his hand, began her story: “It was...it was only a...a few days ago...” "Go on." "I...I was playing hide and seek with my big brother, Timmy. It was my turn to hide, so I hided in the closet. I usually hide under the stairs, so I didn’t think Timmy was ever going to find me. After...after a while, I couldn’t hear Timmy anymore. I thought maybe he had given up, so opened the door out just a little, so see what he was doing. Th-then... I heard...noises. There were people...in the house...people I didn’t know. They sounded like Daddy, but I know they weren’t Daddy, because I could hear him too, talking to the people. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could tell from their voices they were mean. Very, very mean. After a while, Timmy came to the closet. He looked scared. And Timmy is brave, he never gets scared, but he was scared then. I asked him if I’d lost, since he’d found me, but he told me no, I was still winning, but the bad guys were the seekers now. And he said that, no matter what, I can’t let the bad guys find me, cuz he didn’t want me to loose. Then he closed the door. I heard a lot more noises outside. The bad guys were yelling, and I could hear Daddy and Timmy yelling too. I think one of the bad guys hit Timmy, cuz then Daddy got mad. And then...then I heard the bad guys turn on their laser swords. I know what they sound like, Timmy showed it to me once. Then I think they started fighting...” her voice began to quiver “T-t-then...then they...they weren’t fighting anymore. It got really...really quiet. And after I while, I decided to go back outside...the bad guys were gone. Timmy was gone too. But...but Daddy was still there. He was sleeping. I think the bad guys hurt him, because he wouldn’t wake up. He was asleep for a long, long time. Then Phineas came and took me here, and Daddy still hasn’t woken up. I know he hasn’t, cuz if he was, he would’ve come here and taken me home.” She paused for a minutes to rub at her eyes. “I...I'm really scared. I know what happens when people don't wake up, but that's only supposed to happen when they get old. And Daddy wasn’t old. It can’t have happened to Daddy. It just can't...” She trailed off, and fell silent, her story finished. Her words hung in the air like a cold front. Ferb, who felt like he’d just been punched in the gut with an iron fist, looked up at the rest of the group. Jessie and Phineas’s faces looked like a pair of white blankets that had just been bleached. Candace was shivering, tears flickering in her eyes. Isabella had both of her hands clamped over he mouth, as if she was afraid all of the shock would come spilling out of her if she released them. Even Candace’s second dimension counterpart, the steel-nerved leader of the Resistance, had a look on her usually stone-hard face that nobody, not even her family, had seen her wear in years. Even though her childhood wasn’t exactly incomparable to the story she’d just heard, a line had just been crossed in her head. Ferb, who was finding it difficult to swallow, turned back to the little girl and gave the most assuring look her could muster. "We’re gonna help you find Timmy, Ariel." "...Promise?" Ferb looked at everybody as if to say "Do we promise?" "We promise, Ariel.” Said, of all people, Candace-2. Then she shook herself and immediately returned to her cold, apathetic demeanor “We’ve lost enough time. Candace, Ariel is your responsibility. Everybody, let’s move out!" Chapter 8 Suzerain Ten minutes later, Dr. Baljeet had created the teleportal, which was a gateway through time and space very similar to the ones they’d used to transport through dimensions the previous year, only it only traveled between locations of the universe you were presently in. Once through it, they found themselves standing on a concrete pathway, winding straight into the steel door’s of Suzerain’s building. Now that they were face-to-face with it, they finally got a taste of how massive it was. At least twice as tall as any skyscraper in Danville, possibly even taller. They didn’t get much time to admire it, though, because Candace-2 immediately gave them orders to move. Instead of going to the door, though, the team was lead around to the edge. Once there, Candace-2 pulled another unidentified piece of spy equipment from her utility belt and, within second, had used it to breach a hole in the thick metal that constructed the walls of the building. The had their way in. “This is as far as the boys and I go, you’re on your own now.” said Candace-2, saluting them as a final farewell. “Good luck, soldiers.” “You’re gonna need it.” said Phineas-2. An with that, they left. And the sick feeling of nerves that Phineas had been struggling to fight against since they’d entered the portal finally crept its way into his gut. There was very little particularly noteworthy about the interior of Suzerain’s residence, other than it’s sheer size. The walls, floor and ceiling were made of the same steely metal that built up the outside structure, but without any sort of color. They could only infer that the ceiling was made of it, though, because they couldn’t see it. The room was so tall that the walls only went up ten, twenty, thirty feet before they were lost from view. It was very dimly lit, as far as they could see, there were no light sources of any sort. In fact, there was hardly anything at all as far as they could see. Phineas looked around at the scene. Even though he knew it wasn’t a place to be underestimated, he was surprised at how anti-climactic it was. The most powerful evil-doer in the universe, you’d think the inside of his place would be more...elaborate. But he told himself that what the interior of the place looked like wasn't why they were here --- "I’m hungry" It was the first time somebody had spoken since they had entered the building, and the tension was relieved so fast everybody jumped.